Daydreams of Angels

Stories

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Synopsis

Inventive, outlandish, and tender fairy tales from a bestselling author

The fantastic has always been at the edges of Heather O'Neill's work. In her bestselling novels Lullabies for Little Criminals and The Girl Who Was Saturday Night, she transformed the shabbiest streets of Montreal with her beautiful, freewheeling metaphors. She described the smallest of things—a stray cat or a second-hand coat—with an intensity that made them otherworldly.

In Daydreams of Angels, O'Neill's first collection of short stories, she gives free reign to her imaginative gifts. In "The Ugly Ducklings," generations of Nureyev clones live out their lives in a grand Soviet experiment. In "Dear Piglet," a teenaged cult follower writes a letter to explain the motivation behind her crime. And in another tale, a grandmother reveals where babies come from: the beach, where young mothers-to-be hunt for infants in the surf. Each of these beguiling stories twists the beloved narratives of childhood—fairy tales, storybooks, Bible stories—to uncover the deepest truths of family life.

Tries a little hard

Some wonderful momemts in this one, but too often the slavish devotion to fairy tales feels pedantic and dry rather than organic and exuberant. Stick with Kelly Link, Samantha Hunt, Karen Russell, and Aimee Bender